


Maybe Someday

by DragonSilk



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Angst, Awkward Romance, Cat Cafés, F/M, Fluff, One Shot, One-Sided Attraction, Present Tense, Reader-Insert, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 10:32:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13098243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonSilk/pseuds/DragonSilk
Summary: Written based off the below prompt from Tumblr.Prompt: If you're still doing the requests for Kaiba's birthday, how about Kaiba realizing he has feelings for a reader s/o and trying to win their affections ?





	Maybe Someday

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is present tense and that's unusual for me. Wine had a very big role in that stylistic decision so... maybe not the best one, but I did feel like it suited the kind of fragmented bits and pieces way this one shot is written. The entire style of this is very different for me, so let me know how it works for you guys. 
> 
> This also grew out of control and kept going. I never intended this to even hit 1k but here we are. 
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy this? 
> 
> (Also, if the anonymous user who requested this on Tumblr has an account on AO3, let me know so I can gift this to you!)

“You’re not terrible,” Kaiba says, and he’s surprised to realize that it’s true.

You look up from the reports that you’re reviewing and stare at him. You blink a few times, rapidly as if your eyes are too dry. “Thanks, I guess.” You turn back to the reports, a frown on your face. You continue to read, highlighting sections for him to review.

He expected more of a response, but he can’t figure out why. Perhaps you hadn’t understood just how awful working with others can be. Working with you has been painless. You really aren’t terrible.

You turn the pages a few times, looking for something. Then you shuffle through the entire report. You look back up at him, and he realizes that he has been staring. You don’t seem to notice as you speak. “Next quarter’s schedule for releases is missing.”

He frowns, focusing on the task at hand. “Idiots. I’ll make sure that gets sent to you.”

You nod and go back to work.

Not only are you not terrible, but he might even enjoy your company.

* * *

 

“That reporter was a complete dumbass,” you say as if you can read Kaiba’s mind. “I’ll make sure they never get invited to any future press events.”

“Good.” He’d approached you with that specific demand in mind. Now that you have it covered, he isn’t sure what to say.  

You continue to take down notes on your Kaiba Corp. tablet. After a moment, you look up at him. “Is there anything else I can do for you today, Mr. Kaiba?”

Your tone stays professional. No hint of anything else. But for some reason, he finds himself wanting to ask you to spend more time with him. “Seto,” he says before he can stop himself.

You freeze. “I’m sorry?”

“Call me Seto.” He knows he wants your words to sound less professional. He just doesn’t, can’t, understand why.

You open your mouth but close again it without saying a word. You study his face, and he can tell that you are thinking over your words before you speak. It’s a quality he appreciates.

“Thank you,” you finally say. “Now if you’ll excuse me...?”

He nods, and you walk off without another word. He watches you go and wonders why he feels like knocking over the nearby display.

* * *

 

“You should come to Mokuba’s wedding.”

Your eyes widen as you look up, horrified. “Did I forget to R.S.V.P.?”

Kaiba doesn’t know what to say, so he keeps quiet. He hadn’t realized that Mokuba had invited you, but of course Mokuba had. He meant to take you as his guest, but if you’re already going, then there’s no need for that.

You begin digging into your desk drawers. “I’ll text Mokuba right away! I really thought that I had responded to the invite.”

Kaiba backs out of your office. “I’ll see you at the wedding.” He heads to his own office, wondering how he can figure out where Mokuba plans to have you sit.

* * *

 

To Kaiba’s pleasure, Mokuba placed you at his table. He’d also included Yugi and his friends at the table as well. Kaiba appreciates the thought. He isn’t sure that he could have tolerated sitting with anyone else through the reception. (To be honest, he doesn’t know if he’ll still be able to tolerate Yugi’s friends once the open bar gets started.)

Despite that, Kaiba is pleased to have you sitting next to him. He finds himself curious about who you are outside of work.

Then he discovers that you know nothing about Duel Monsters. He’s appalled by this gap in your knowledge and launches into a lecture on the strategy involved in the game when you call it a kid’s game. You stare at him as he speaks, and he assumes that you’re fascinated, but then Joey has the audacity to ask you to dance, and you jump out of your seat to take him up on the offer.

Kaiba glares as the two of you begin to dance. His hand tightens around his cup, and he feels the urge to plant his fist in Joey’s face. It's not a foreign emotion for him. He really just hates that mutt.

“Sorry.” Yugi places a hand on Kaiba’s arm.

Kaiba shakes the hand off, still glaring at Joey. “You have nothing to be sorry about.”

“I told Joey to ask her to dance.”

Kaiba’s glare shifts over to Yugi. Yugi seems to have trouble meeting his eyes. Good.

“Kaiba, if you’re trying to get her to like you, you weren’t really going about it the right way.”

“Shut up, Yugi.” Kaiba cringes as the childish words leave his mouth.

Téa feels the need to come to Yugi’s defense after that. “He’s just trying to help, Kaiba. Don’t be an ass.”

“I don’t need anyone’s help.” Kaiba stands. He can’t talk about this with Yugi, especially not with Yugi’s little girlfriend eavesdropping. He storms over to where you’re dancing (and laughing!) with Joey.

He grabs Joey’s shoulder, pulling him away from you. “I’m cutting in.”

“Sure, man.” Joey grins, making Kaiba narrow his eyes at him.

“I didn’t ask for your permission,” Kaiba snaps. Then he takes your hands and dances you away from Joey.

“Maybe you should have asked for my permission?”

The annoyance in your voice catches Kaiba off-guard. He looks down at you and raises an eyebrow.

“Sorry, Mr. Kaiba, that was unprofessional, but you could’ve asked me first.”

“We’re not at work.” He pulls you closer, placing his hand on your lower back instead of your waist. “You can call me Seto.”

You don’t respond, and when he looks down, he finds you looking away from him. He doesn’t like that. He wants you to see your eyes focused on him. He wants you to treat him as more. More than just your boss.

The music speeds up, seamlessly switching to a faster song. You pull away. “Thank you for the dance, but I think I’m going to say goodbye to Mokuba.” You back away while you speak, then you turn and make your way to the bride and groom. He watches as you speak to Mokuba, and his eyes follow you as you walk out of the reception.

Then he looks back at his brother. Mokuba holds his wife’s hand as she leans in to whisper in his ear. Mokuba has never looked happier, and Kaiba can’t recall the last time he’d felt so jealous of his younger brother.

* * *

 

He sends you flowers for your birthday. Your address is in your employee file, and your birthday happens to fall on a weekend, so he decides to send you an arrangement of roses.

He tells himself it’s because it’s your birthday and they’re just flowers. The bouquet he chooses is the size of a bush, but that can’t be considered excessive considering how little it cost.

Flowers for your birthday don’t have to mean anything.

* * *

 

When he sees you at work on Monday, he asks how your weekend went.

“It was fine,” you say before launching into telling him your ideas for a product launch.

He wonders if the flowers had been delivered. Maybe you don’t like flowers? He wants to know, but he can’t bring himself to ask.

* * *

 

He decides to pick out a real present for you. He can admit that he enjoys spending time with you, and that says something impressive about you. Most people are tedious imbeciles. If he can spend time with you and enjoy it, then maybe he owes you a decent present.

The jewelry that he’d observed you wearing at Mokuba’s wedding had looked cheap, and he assumes that would have been the best jewelry that you owned. So he decides to buy you something nice. Based on what he’d observed with Mokuba’s relationships, he assumes that all women appreciate jewelry.

The sapphire necklace catches his eye right away as he peruses the store, and while he can’t be sure what type of gems you like, he likes the idea of giving you something blue. The emerald cut sapphire is huge, perhaps a little too big for you, but Kaiba imagines it around your neck, and after that, he can’t get the vision out of his head. He looks over the rest of the jewelry the store has to offer just to be sure, but he likes the idea of you wearing the sapphire and diamond necklace around your neck.

So he buys it.

* * *

 

You have your own office at Kaiba Corp, and he stops by your office to give you the present in private. He puts the box down on your desk without a word. You look at him, waiting for him to explain, and when he doesn’t, you lift it up delicately but make no movement to open it. “What’s this?” you ask.

“It’s a birthday present.” He watches your hands as you turn the box over and study it.

You try to hand it back to him. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”

“It’s yours.” He pushes it away and back to you.

You place the box back down on your desk. Then you grab the end of the ribbon and pull, undoing the bow on the box. You pull the ribbon away and then lift the lid. You hold the lid up, staring at the necklace for a moment, before you push the lid back down on the box.

“No,” you say, holding the box back out to Kaiba. “I can’t accept this.”

He takes the box and opens it. He removes the necklace. “It’s a waste for me to keep it. I’m not going to wear it.” He walks around your desk, and you twist your chair so you can continue to face him. He grabs the top of the chair and pulls it so you face away from him. He drapes the necklace around your neck and then fastens the hook.

His hand hesitates near the clasp. He doesn’t want to pull it away, but he isn’t sure what to do with it. So he takes a step back. He walks around the desk to get a better view of the necklace now that you’re wearing it.

It looks exactly the way he imagined. “It’s perfect.”

You lift your hand up to run it along the stones. “It’s too much.”

“Not for you.” Nothing would be too much for you.

You look down at the necklace, and after a pause, you whisper, “Thank you.”

He assumed that you would have been more appreciative, but it’s okay that you aren’t. You seem overwhelmed by his gift instead. So he leaves you alone to process it.  

* * *

 

After accepting the necklace from him, you withdraw. When you speak to him, you keep the conversation to work related matters, and you begin emailing him rather than speaking to him in person.

He wonders if you hate the necklace. Maybe you don’t like sapphires?

He decides to have chocolate covered strawberries delivered to you.

* * *

 

Kaiba asks you to stay late so the two of you can work on a new product launch. You protest. You don’t want to stay late with him. But the more you tell him no, the more he wants to spend time with you. He needs to understand why you’ve become more and more formal with him. He needs to figure out where he’s gone wrong with you.

Shortly before five, you enter his office, carrying your laptop and a folder full of papers. “Are you sure we need to go over the Duelist Kingdom sequel stuff tonight? I thought the release wouldn’t be for another month.”

“It might get pushed forward.” He’s lying through his teeth, but he’s confident that you’ll never find out.

You look down at his desk, still holding your things to your chest. Then you look over at the table near Mokuba’s couch. “I’ll get my stuff going over here…” You walk over and begin to lay your things out, taking up space on the table. “Marketing is mostly done with the roll out ideas but nothing has been approved yet…” You unfold a large poster. “Yugi Muto did some of the voice acting right?” You hold the poster up in front of your body. It reads: PLAY AS THE KING OF GAMES! “We were thinking about capitalizing on his popularity. What do you think?”

Kaiba hates anything that makes him feel like he owes Yugi something, but he appreciates Yugi’s input on the game itself too much to say that he doesn’t want him involved in the marketing campaign. He grits his teeth and tries to change the subject. “I thought you didn’t know anything about Duel Monsters?”

You smile. “Guilty. But this wasn’t my idea. I didn’t even know Yugi was a big deal until someone on my team mentioned it. I could give you his name if you want to talk with him about the plan since he came up with it?”

Kaiba shakes his head. You aren’t getting out of this that easy. “We would need to get Yugi to sign on to this. I don’t think his contract allows us to use his face in the marketing campaign.”

“Done! I think…” You drop the poster onto the couch, draping it over the back. Then you dig into your papers, shuffling through them. “No. Nope. Um. Where did that… Here!” You pull out a packet and bring it over to Kaiba’s desk. “He signed the paperwork for that already. Mokuba was able to get that done for me.”

Kaiba looks at the papers, but he can’t help but think about the fact that you’ll use his brother’s given name and not his. Mokuba is a happily married man. You shouldn’t be referring to him so informally.

“Why won’t you call me Seto?” he asks before he can stop himself. He hates the fact that this bothers him so much.

Your body freezes, but your eyes move around the room as if they can find a way for you to escape. “You’re my boss,” you finally say. “It doesn’t seem right.”

“Mokuba is your boss.” He slams the papers down on his desk in frustration, and you flinch.

“Sure, but... it’s different with him, and I can’t call both of you Mr. Kaiba.”

Kaiba wants to know what he can do to stop you from seeing him as just your boss, but he can’t ask you that question. He can’t ask you how to make you like him more.

He holds the packet out for you to take. “Great job on making sure all the paperwork is done.”

You take the papers back, keeping as far away from him as possible. “Thanks.” Then you back away from him, putting the packet back with your paperwork. “I think I just remembered something I was supposed to do tonight. Can we talk tomorrow?”

He wants to say no, but something tells him that will just push you further away. So he waves his hand and dismisses you as if you mean nothing to him.

* * *

 

You avoid Kaiba, taking a week off from work with little advance notice. Kaiba spends the week looking for reasons to yell at people. He can’t understand how he keeps pushing you away.

When you return, you don’t look the same. Your clothes seem rumpled and your hair is a mess. Kaiba despises people who come to work looking like they just threw on whatever they could find. He tries to look down on you for it. He tells himself that you’re just like everyone else. You only hid it for longer than most.

He still finds himself drawn to you. He takes any excuse to show up at your office or talk to you.

You’re disinterested at best. You get your work done, and that’s the only positive thing he can say about you. He disagrees with one of your ideas to try to get you to argue with him. You simply kill the idea without protest. Kaiba can’t figure out what is wrong with you, and he can’t bring himself to ask.

Then he walks into your office and finds you crying.

“Are you hurt?” he asks, wondering if it would be possible to sound like more of an idiot. No wonder you don’t enjoy talking to him.

“Shit!” You spin your chair around, almost toppling over in your hurry to hide your face. “Sorry! Sorry!” You grab a tissue, blowing your nose. You curse, sobs breaking out as you slide to the floor.

Kaiba wants to turn around and leave, pretend he never witnessed this pathetic display. Another part of him wants to berate you for bringing emotions to work. He takes a deep breath, clearing his mind as you try to control your sobbing. He doesn’t know what to do, and he hates himself for hesitating.

The room is silent. He realizes that you’ve stopped crying. He’s about to open the door and get out while he still can, but then you say, “Mr. Kaiba?” sounding like a lost child, and he knows he’s stuck.

He doesn’t respond, but you sit up and look over the top of the desk at him. “Does it ever get better?” you ask, and for all his brilliance, he has no idea what you mean. He tries to figure out what you’re talking about, and his silence inspires you to keep talking. “I’m sorry if it’s… too personal… It’s just that I know you’ve lost your parents so… does it ever feel ok?”

The question clicks into place, and he wishes that he’d left when he still had the chance. He can’t answer that question. He had Mokuba to take care of after he lost his parents. That didn’t give him the time for anything else. “You should talk to Mokuba instead.” The words come out sharper than he meant, but you nod, and he hates himself for sending you to his brother.

The decision is made, and he strides over to pick you up off the floor. You don’t cooperate, but he’s able to get you into a standing position. Your eyes are red, your hair is a mess, and he has a feeling you might be covered in snot. “Go to the bathroom and wash your face,” he commands.

Wide-eyed, you just nod before leaving your office to follow his instructions.

He takes advantage of your absence to check in with HR, confirming that you had been out on bereavement. Then he makes a few calls, starting with having his driver pull around to the front of the building.

When you come back, you’re embarrassed and can’t make eye contact with him. You try to apologize, but he interrupts you before you can get very far. “Did you drive to work today?”

You’re surprised by the question, but you answer it. “No. I usually take the subway.”

Kaiba expected that answer, but he’s still relieved to have it confirmed. It makes what he’s about to do easier. “Pack your things. You’re done for the day.”

“No! I’m fine. Really. And I’m so sorry for… that.”

Kaiba holds his hand up, stopping you from babbling. “This is not up for debate. Pack your things.”

It only takes you a moment to gather your stuff. “I’m not fired, am I?”

“No.” He opens your office door. “Follow me.”

He escorts you out of the building and to his limo. His driver holds the door open for you, but you don’t go near the vehicle. “I can get myself home, Mr. Kaiba.”

“I’m sure you can.” He gestures for you to get in.

You seem ready to protest, but he stares you down and you lose your nerve. You slide into the backseat of his limousine, and he slides in next to you. The door closes behind him, and you scoot over to the other side.

His driver already has the right address plugged into the GPS and merges into traffic. It’s not a far drive, distance-wise, but the city traffic makes it take longer. Kaiba waits for you to realize that the limo isn’t heading in the direction of your home, but you stay quiet for the entire drive.

When the limousine finally stops, it takes you a moment to realize that you’re expected to get out. “This isn’t my home,” you inform Kaiba as if he didn’t know.

He takes your hand and pulls you out of the limo. You look around, disoriented, but you allow him to lead you into the cafe. The “CLOSED” sign is up on the door, but once Kaiba knocks, the door is opened for him and the two of you are ushered inside.

Kaiba studies your expression, hoping that he made the right choice. You don’t say anything, but a smile creeps onto your face as you kneel on the floor and reach out for the nearest kitten. The kitten rubs itself against your hand, and you look up at him. “A cat cafe?”

He realizes that he needs to explain himself. “Mokuba loves this place.” It’s even true. He’s only ever been here with Mokuba before now. Kaiba watches for a moment as you pet the cats that have clustered around you. Then he goes over to his usual table and sits down, ready to get his laptop out so he can get some work done.

He hasn’t been sitting for even a minute before two cats find their way into his lap. He tries to convince them that the seat next to him would be a better place to lay down, but they won’t budge.

Another cat hops up onto the table and sits down right in front of him. “You’re in the way,” Kaiba tells the cat. It meows at him and then starts washing itself.

He places his laptop on the table next to the cat, and then has to block the cat from climbing on top of the laptop. “No.”

The cat meows a protest.

You slide into the seat opposite his, holding a cat in your arms. “Why did you bring me here?”

Kaiba opens his laptop and turns it on. “I used to bring Mokuba here.”

You wait for more of a response, but Kaiba doesn’t give you one. He starts working on his computer, knowing that you likely won’t want to talk. He knows he didn’t want to talk to anyone after he lost his parents.

You’re given some cat food by the waiter, and the table is quickly swarmed by the cats and kittens. The cats find their way over to Kaiba, and no matter how much he tries to push them away, they all want to sit on him.

He hears you giggle, and his attention focuses on you. You smile, caught, and reach over to pet the kitten that insists on sitting on his keyboard. “They like you a lot.”

“They just enjoy sitting on an unwilling victim.” It’s the truth as far as he’s concerned, so Kaiba is surprised when you laugh. He looks at you, wondering what you’re laughing about, but you shake your head and go back to playing with the cats.

The two of you sit in silence for a while. You talk to the cats from time to time. Kaiba works on his laptop.

When you reach across the table to touch Kaiba’s arm, it startles him out of his work. He raises an eyebrow.

“Thanks for this.” You look down at the table. “I think I’m ready to go home now.”

He doesn’t respond but packs up his laptop. Cats scatter, meowing unhappily, as he stands up. You follow him back to his limousine. You don’t speak as his driver takes you home, but Kaiba notices that you’re smiling a little bit more.

Once the car pulls up in front of your building, Kaiba gets out, intending to walk you to your door. You place a hand on his chest, stopping him. You smile up at him. “Thanks for today... Seto.” You bite your lip, and for a moment, he thinks you might say something else, but then you grab the front of his shirt, pulling him down as you push yourself up on your toes. You kiss his cheek. Then you back away from him before he’s even realized what just happened. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” you say before you turn and flee into your home.


End file.
